Sydney Sweeney Ad Sparks Debate on Female Representation in Sports
Karen Duggan has seen plenty of lazy stereotypes in sport. This one, she says, is old hat.
The former Republic of Ireland international believes the uproar over Sydney Sweeney’s controversial betting advert has “flipped the script in a positive way” and dragged the spotlight back to where it belongs – on the graft, discipline and edge required to be an elite female athlete.
The ad, for American betting company Novig, shows the Hollywood actor wearing little to no clothing, draped in sports equipment. It lit a fuse across women’s sport.
Four-time Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus, American gymnast Gracie Kramer and British sprinter Amy Hunt all called it out. Hunt went further, warning it could become a “barrier” to young girls even wanting to play sport.
Duggan, speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, did not waste time dressing it up.
“In a way, I think we're nearly over-complicating it as a sports ad. I think it's silly,” she said. “I think it uses an outdated formula of, you know, attractive women, sports imagery, and a bit of controversy to sell a product. I don't think it was ever intended to represent female athletes or women in sport or the reality of that.”
Her sharpest criticism cut behind the camera.
“My biggest criticism of it is that I don't think women were part of that conversation at all.
“Sydney Sweeney doesn't represent me as a normal woman or as a female athlete in any way. I don't think it's an ad made by people trying to understand what it takes to be a female athlete and the discipline and the sacrifice and the competitiveness and the physicality that goes with that.”
She kept returning to the same phrase.
“I think it's a silly ad. I think it's so outdated. But the response to me has been really, really interesting.”
Because while the imagery felt stuck in another era, the backlash did not.
Duggan sees a clear target audience: “largely just for men who consume sports through their phones, through social media, rather than even men who go out and engage in sports by going to the games, watching athletes, and appreciating what athletes do, both male and female.”
The ad, she argues, has accidentally exposed something deeper.
“I feel like there's obviously been something bubbling under the surface where female athletes feel massively underrepresented in advertising, in social media, and under-celebrated. And I love how they've used this ad as a means to go out there and highlight how the female athlete thinks, how hard they work.”
Scroll through Duggan’s feed and it tells its own story.
“My algorithm isn't coming at me with loads of Sydney Sweeney propaganda. It's coming at me with the likes of Amy Hunt using her platform after a race to celebrate her competitors. So I think it's flipped the script a bit in a positive way. I think all the controversy that goes with the ad will dwindle away, but hopefully that this kind of movement to highlight female athletics will continue on for some time.”
Hunt has become the emblem of that response. Fresh from winning four gold medals at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest at the weekend, she aimed a simple message at the Hollywood star: “this is what women in sport look like.”
On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Hunt laid out the stakes for the next generation.
“When we’re trying to provide role models for young people and young women in sport, we really want to show that it’s about what your body can do, not so much what it looks like,” she said.
The numbers back up her concern. “When we see the stats of 64% of young girls drop out of exercise and sport before they reach the age of 16, we don’t need to place any kind of barrier whatsoever in their way in terms of providing the opportunity and the empowerment for them to still exercise, whatever that looks like, professional or kind of just going to do a park run with your friends.
“So it’s about empowering young girls and young women and young people to show that you really can just get out there and you don’t have to worry what you look like, you don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing.”
Duggan’s focus now is on the collective voice that has emerged.
“You don't want an advertising campaign to define the conversation around women. We want the women to use their platforms now, use their own voices, celebrate each other's strength, athleticism, humour, ultimately real women. That's what's more powerful.”
There is also a message for the industry watching this unfold.
“I'm hoping that other companies are seeing the reaction, the kind of visceral reaction that women and athletes are having to this ad, and it kind of clicks with them, that this is what women want to see.
“If you're a company like Novig, and you're solely focused on a certain cohort of men - like I said, I think it's just a cohort of men who consume sports through their phones or through betting and in that way - that's their prerogative.
“But I think generally what companies should take from this is that we want to see strong, powerful women. I would react to Amy Hunt in a Nike ad far more than I'd react to Sydney Sweeney in a betting ad.”
The ad will fade. The question now is whether brands have really heard what women in sport have just told them.
